Go Your Own Way
by jak981125
Summary: After the events of The Real Folk Blues a man must reflect on Vicious's life and his own. A new chaper in the world of Bebop.


GO YOUR OWN WAY by jak981125

An Introduction

Vicious was a cold, dark man. The eye of a snake analogy that the elders had come up with was the understatement of the year. He was skilled in the art of Jeet Kune Do. He had also taken Kendo, so believe me, he knew how to use that sword that he always carried around. Very few ever saw a different side to Vicious, although he did have one. By the time Spike killed him, he had left very few people behind that he was even remotely close to. In fact, there's only one I can think of.

Lau Xiang was what they used to refer to as "Amerasian" back on earth. He had been born in San Francisco in 2045 to a Chinese father and a white mother. He loved classic rock the way Jet loved jazz. He was a syndicate man himself but had given serious consideration to leaving. He was tall and thin, but muscular. He had black hair and almond-shaped eyes. To tell you the truth, he wasn't hard on the eyes at all. Ironically enough, the woman he finally married was blind from Venus sickness. She had never been healthy and after a year of marriage she died in a Calisto sanitarium from Tuberculosis. Her name was Talia. She was Vicious's half- sister. So that explains how Lau comes into this story.

Our story begins with Lau laying face-down in his own blood inside the headquarters of the Red Dragons. He was a member of the new guard himself and had briefly been a target of the old guard when the coup backfired. It wasn't just because he was with the new guard. It was also because he had strongly supported the coup. His disdain for the elders was a huge factor in his desire to get out of the Dragons. He had been on guard duty the night Spike invaded and was injured by shrapnel from a grenade. That wasn't what surprised him so much. He had been warned by Vicious that Spike would come looking for a piece of him. What surprised him was the bullet that had gone right through his hand. It hadn't been fired by Spike. It had been fired by Shin.

Shin's twin brother, Lin, had been a strong supporter of the old order and had laid down his life protecting Vicious from Gren. Lin had been absurdly loyal to the elders and in his own mind, when he was protecting Vicious, he was protecting them (despite the fact that Vicious hated them). In spite of his bravery, he became somewhat of a laughing stock among the new guard after his death. The man he had laid his life down for did not support Lin's ideals and certainly wouldn't have done Lin the same courtesy he received from him.

Though badly wounded, Lau had to chuckle at himself for assuming Shin would be anything like his brother. After all, Talia and Vicious had been siblings and they were as different as night and day. Of course laughter of any kind is unpleasant when you've got three pieces of shrapnel in your gut. Lau got off easy, though. He was the only survivor on that floor.

As his hand and abdomen throbbed horribly, he could hear the sounds of more gunfire from upstairs. Then he blacked out. He came to after what seemed like hours, but was in reality just a few minutes. Upon reviving, the very first sight he saw was not a pleasant one. The few guards who remained unscathed by Spike's assault were carrying the body of Vicious to the elevator.

Lau had never been on real warm fuzzy terms with his brother-in-law. They understood one another well enough, possibly better than the rest of the guard. So he certainly felt bad to see him die.

Vicious had gotten Lau into the Dragons a few years earlier as a favor. Before that, no one had even known that Vicious had a sister, not even Spike. But here was her husband, in the flesh. Vicious was not the type to talk much about himself. He was more the type who liked to talk about how he was going to kill whomever he had a grudge against that particular day (and he had plenty of grudges). Most of this was just empty talk. Notice, I didn't say all of it. It may seem hard to believe, but Vicious had a secret shame. Talia had been legitimate but Vicious had been a bastard child. You wouldn't think that would bother a guy like him but it did. His mother had been just one of many mistresses of a wealthy Gate Corporation executive and Vicious barely even knew his father. As far as Vicious was concerned, this was a disgrace for a proud man like himself. Let's face it, Vicious took himself way too seriously. One of the younger guards made the mistake of snickering over the whole thing once the cat was out of the bag. He quickly found himself on the floor with Vicious's katana to his throat and was given exactly five seconds to apologize which he did.

As a younger man, Lau had had limited prospects in life and had seen his father literally work himself to death building domes. These domes were vital to protect the inhabitants of San Francisco from falling moon fragments. Nevertheless, old Mr. Xiang made next to nothing after a lifetime of back-breaking labor. Lau was determined not to let that happen to himself. In 2071 a man who wanted to make a decent living really had only three options. He could join a syndicate. He could be a cop on the syndicate's payroll. Or he could go work for the Gate Corporation. The last option was out of the question as Lau didn't want to be struck by lightning. His marriage to Talia was for real and not an attempt to get close to Vicious. He didn't even know about Vicious until they were engaged. Once he was married, Vicious did offer to get him into the Dragons though. This became a source of great distress to Talia, who really was a good girl in ever respect. She was the polar opposite of Vicious and both Lau and Vicious adored her for it. To Lau, she was the love of his life. To Vicious, she was the innocence that he had lost so long ago (if he ever had any in the first place). She was the one person that would always love him unconditionally. It may have been her fear over Lau joining the Dragons that lead to her early demise. Whether or not that was the case, it was a load of guilt Lau carried with him forever. He was easily driven to guilt.

Once Lau had gotten into the syndicate, it was clear that there would be no nepotism of any kind. Vicious treated Lau the way he treated everyone else, like garbage. Vicious regarded everyone with either contempt or complete indifference. Spike, Julia, and Talia were the only exceptions.

It didn't take Lau long to realize why Vicious hated the elders so much. They were not the sensible and wise leaders they imagined themselves to be. They were completely out of touch with the present and loved to make their power felt. Vicious had not been allowed to attend his own sister's funeral because the elders ordered him to take on "a mission of the greatest significance to the Clan." The whole thing turned out to be a hoax. They were simply testing Vicious's loyalty and trying to remind him who was boss. It tried Vicious's patience beyond words and permanently set the entire new guard against them.

Most of the old guard was loyal to the elders. It wasn't because they admired their leadership qualities, but because they stood to profit the most from these useless old men. Their favor rested completely on the old guard. They were the elders' little pet poodles and received great compensation for little work. The general opinion among the new guard was that new leadership was needed. But who could replace the elders? Had they reached any consensus on that issue, the coup would have taken place years earlier, even before Spike left.

Lau had supported a coup but felt putting Vicious in charge would be like putting Sonny in charge of the Corleone family. Yet as time passed, those who would have made good leaders faded away. Spike left the Clan. Mao was killed. Mao was with the old guard but opposed the elders and had enough seniority to get away with it. He would have made a good leader and it's possible Vicious killed him to eliminate the competition. He knew that the elders wouldn't punish him for it as they feared Mao would take over. The younger, more impulsive members liked Vicious's style and may have made him leader much earlier. However, this was not to be just yet. Vicious was convicted of manslaughter right after Spike's departure. He killed the son of a powerful judge in a duel. Even though the prosecutors were on the payroll, a plea for Manslaughter was the best offer he could get. He was given the choice of prison time or military service. While he fought in the war over on Titan, the elders cleverly tried to weed out opposition by sending supporters of Vicious on missions guaranteed to get them killed. This only inflamed those remaining and it was only a matter of time before they really did go ahead with the coup.

Lau thought about all these things as he was carried away on a gurney. After trying to keep Vicious alive after the coup failed by sending traitors within the old guard to his rescue, he felt like he had let down the last relation he had. The guilt was more painful than his injuries. He felt as if he had let his wife down yet again. At the time, he didn't realize just how misplaced his guilt was.

Aftermath

Lau's part in the story might have ended at this point had it not been for the events of the next few days. Lau had to have his hand amputated and spent hours in surgery for the abdominal wounds. He was surly because the hospital staff would not let him smoke. He begged his visiting comrades to try to sneak cigarettes to him but the nurses were very sharp and were twice as aggressive as any Red Dragon. The end result was that he only got his hands on just one smoke. This particular cigarette caused a small fire when it ignited a bowl of rubbing alcohol. Needless to say, the next time he needed help getting to the bathroom, the nurses ignored the call button for about an hour.

His new mechanical hand was a real pain. Or should I say a real itch. It constantly felt like his hand itched but scratching a mechanical hand doesn't help. His nerves were playing tricks on him. At one point he was taken from his room to the hospital morgue to make the official identification of Vicious's body. When he saw Vicious he noticed something a little strange. Vicious looked exactly the same as he had when he was alive. He had always referred to the elders as "corpses" but now that Lau thought about it, Vicious really had kind of looked like a walking corpse his whole life. Talia had been just the opposite. Though she bore a striking resemblance to Vicious (grey hair and all) she had never looked more alive, even when she had died. It certainly made an impression on Lau. This was the man he had helped establish as a leader.

It was when he was released from the hospital that Lau was appointed as executor of Vicious's estate. Lau had certainly not asked for a job like that but as I said earlier, he was a man easily driven to guilt. He hadn't figured it would be a very tricky job. Vicious was a miser. The only thing he had ever spent a significant amount of money on was his sister's hospitalization. And of course he racked up some expenses on red eye. He was not a heavy user but not a week went by where he didn't get high on that stuff. If you think Vicious was a dangerous man, you should have seen him under the effects of red eye. After all, one of the main ingredients is a synthesized form of PCP.

Vicious had lived alone in a ratty little apartment on Mars. Most of the money he had made over the years, he kept under his bed. He didn't even have a bank account. Perhaps that was wise as Mars had no FDIC and bank robberies were frequent. He had indeed left a will but it hadn't been updated in years. He had left nearly everything to the Dragons. Almost everyone else he had left anything to was dead already. Practically all his assets were in cash. He did leave one thing specifically to Lau though. A manuscript. Now the other Dragons couldn't help but laugh over that. Vicious, a writer? This cold blooded man had little to say to anyone. He was the most inexpressive man they had ever met. Even when he caught Spike going out with Julia he hadn't said anything. He just went for his katana and Spike went for his gun, a gesture to be repeated all too often. The cops had stopped that fight before it got ugly but the damage was done. Whatever warmth Vicious had left died forever.

The other dragons immediately dubbed the manuscript "Snake Manifesto" in a reference to Valerie Solanis, and were extremely eager to get a look at it. But the instructions in the will were clear, only Lau was to read it. Lau was a little shocked that the Clan was taking the death of Vicious so lightly and could have a laugh at his expense after his death. They wouldn't have dared while he was alive (at least not while he was within earshot).

Lau left early, determined to take the manuscript home and read it. The whole subway ride home, no one bothered him as he was wearing the outer garment of a syndicate man. Anyone else traveling alone might have been mugged. Lau was itching to see what was so important that Vicious had to get across (or was it his hand again?). Having never lived in our time, it had up till now never occurred to Lau that the world had gone to hell. This was the world he knew. But after spending years trying not to think too heavily he noticed his surroundings for the first time in a while. He lived in a cold, poor world with unhappy people and it seemed like all of them were sharing this train with him. Worse yet, they all seemed afraid of him in his syndicate uniform. Lau didn't realize that tough times like the one he was facing are what drive people to reflect on life. His wife was gone. His hand and his leader had been lost in one day and his buddies seem unconcerned after they had risked everything to put the man in power. You can't walk around in a dream forever. What was in that book? Had Vicious taken some time to open his eyes?

It was when he got home that he realized this was not a book at all. It was a personal message to Lau. To be precise, it was a long, rambling personal message, rather uncharacteristic for Vicious. It was obvious that as time passed Vicious had added to this thing as it was more up to date than the will it was mentioned in. I won't bore you with the whole thing. But I will let you see just what it was in this manuscript that moved Lau.

Snake Manifesto

I see no reason for any man to believe. This is truly a dream we live in and not at all a pleasant one. Why must we BS ourselves into thinking any of this is real? Why do we believe in this? There is nothing in this world to believe in.

It may be easy for some to dismiss what I am saying. Here you see a man who has either lost those he believed in, was betrayed by those he believed in, or betrayed those who believed in him. Everyone by now knows that Julia, the one woman that I ever gave my love to, and Spike, the one man I ever gave my friendship to, have betrayed me. I will punish them both for this treachery, for that is the here and now, but in the wide view of things, it hardly seems worth it. They are real but these circumstances are a mere illusion.

Those who knew me in my army days may have the opinion that I gave my friendship to someone other than Spike. I did not. This too was an illusion, this time put into place by me. And even I was fooled. His name was Gren. We fought that war together, side by side. I make it a policy in life to mix business with pleasure and the war was no exception. While fighting the war (pleasure) I was also doing my duty to the syndicate (business). Red eye had been scarce on Titan and plenty of the locals were eager customers. I had few possessions and after Julia's betrayal, only one of them no longer had any meaning for me, the music box she bought me years ago. I took this seemingly sentimental object to war with me and inside concealed a transmitter to contact local clients. No one searches a man's photo album and no one searched this thing either and I went undiscovered.

Gren was the one person I believed to be a friend in this war. He was young and idealistic, and I even I was fooled into thinking I was his friend. I managed to prove myself wrong later. When I met Gren I had just finished all my business with the locals. The transmissions had attracted the attention of military security but they were not competent to pinpoint the source. I decided it would be wise to dispose of my little device now that I was done with it. I listened to its song one more time as yet another illusion, that of nostalgia, passed over me. This is when Gren showed interest in the song it played. I was going to bury it in the sand but I decided to give it to him. It became very precious to him and he promised to play the song on his saxophone when he returned home.

I did not realize two things. First of all, the device was still transmitting a blank signal. Second of all, Gren met Julia while he was on leave. She recognized her song playing in a bar and wanted to know how the saxophonist knew it. She immediately recognized the music box that I had given her which was now in Gren's possession. She urged him to open it up when she learned that it was a gift from me. Had Gren taken her advice more promptly, I may have gone on foolishly believing him to be my comrade. He bided his time a while and when he finally did find the transmitter inside, the military police had tracked down the source of the transmission. That was when he told them it was from me.

I denied the whole thing and testified against Gren thus proving myself wrong about the friendship. What true friend was I to him to let him take the wrap for the whole thing? He was sent to a military prison and I was sent back to the Clan. Other people are real but circumstances are a dream. Why then sacrifice yourself over dreams?

We all awake within death. I defy my waking moment day after day but have foreseen a day when me and Spike will wake each other. It is our destiny and cannot be escaped. I have testified to the fact that there is nothing in this world to believe in. Is there then another world in which belief is warranted? Is there a true waking from this dream? I know the answer to be affirmative. The devil is a close personal friend of mine. If he and hell and damnation are real then it stands to reason that God is real. I do not long speculate over such things, I just say what I know to be.

In sincerity, I long not to live. I cannot imagine an end to my own existence but see an end to the grand illusion. I need to see something real even if that reality involves the fires of hell themselves. I will not delude myself.

Know then Lau, that you and I are not friends. You believe in the dream you stumble around in every day. I cannot. Friendship is for the most part a circumstance. Circumstances are dreams. Only the people are real and everything else is circumstance. So by all means do what you can to stay on top within this dream because nothing remains of a dream when you awake but the memories. Nonetheless, I will remember you fondly.  
Vicious

Exodus

Of course the whole manuscript went on much longer than that. Lau was a wee bit perplexed when he was done reading it. In fact, he read the whole thing three more times that night. "Not my friend but will remember me fondly?" "Nothing in the dream counts but heaven and hell are real?" What was this crap? Was this the kind of thing that went through Vicious's mind? Was this whole manuscript one big long suicide note and going after Spike was the means of suicide?

Then something else occurred to Lau. The concept of an inability to imagine an end to oneself. Vicious was right. Try as he might, Lau couldn't do it. He imagined a dark silence but in that dark silence, he was still there to experience it and couldn't imagine away that part. Lau had wondered his whole life if there really was life after death but now he decided for the first time that there was. If this was true then why try to get ahead in this life? Why treat this life as if it were meaningless? If there is an afterlife did it include heaven and hell as always seen by tradition? What criteria separated the two destinies? Whoops! Lau looked out the window and saw the break of dawn. He had been at this all night.

"Aw Vicious, why did you have to do this to me? Why did you have to make me get all philosophical?", thought Lau. Lau started to wonder if Spike's departure had anything to do with the sort of things he was thinking about now. Actually Lau was thinking in terms of the future and Spike had been thinking in terms of the past but in the end they both reached the same conclusion, it had to end. They had to get out of the Dragons. But how?

Lau had to think fast. In two hours he was scheduled to assassinate a lieutenant in the White Tigers Clan. Could he still do it? Not now, not after all this. He needed more time to think about everything but he didn't have any. Could he escape? Not bloody likely. He didn't even have a passport. He never needed one before.

Just then a knock came at the door and as soon as he opened it, a large metallic arm grabbed him by the throat and a second set of hands handcuffed him.

"Lau Xiang, you're under arrest," came a gruff man's voice.

"Are you cops?", asked Lau.

"Just your friendly neighborhood bounty hunters, you beautiful ten million wulong bounty head, you!", replied a cool female voice.

Just then he could have sworn he heard gunshots in the hall. He was literally thrown back into his room like a rag doll and hit his head on the floor and he knew no more.

To Be Continued...

(c) 2004 Joseph Kerner

Note: I disclaim having anything to do with Cowboy Bebop other than watching and enjoying it. Now that no one can sue me I'd like to thank you for reading. This is my first ever Bebop fic and hopefully not the last. Now be a good reader and go leave a review, will ya? 


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